Page 18 of Corrupt Me

His hand swarms mine as he steps toward me and I realize that he’s much larger than Amiri. When they were in the booth, I just knew that Kolsen’s shoulders were massive but standing here, looking up at this Alpha, I feel so small. And seen. And precious. Kolsen raises my hand to his lips, pressing them lightly against my knuckles. “Would you like one of us to take you home?” I furiously shake my head at the suggestion. My father will have a heart attack if I come home with Alphas that haven’t been approved by him, mates or not. “Can I at the very least call you an Uber so that I know you got home safely?”

“This is all moving very fast, isn’t it?” I want to believe that these feelings creeping into my heart in the last twelve hours are more than just biology.

A soft smile spreads across half of Kolsen’s face as he pulls me back to the couch and onto his lap. Sasha saddles up against our side, Amiri moving back to his perch on the coffee table. Kolsen reaches forward to push a few stray hairs behind my ear, his gentle touch making my thoughts run elsewhere. “I don’t know how much you learned in high school biology or what they teach in that church of yours but love, it only moves as fast as we let it. Biology tells us who we are most compatible with but our choices are the ones that lead us to our mates.”

I open my mouth to contest that when Sasha adds his two cents. “Biology helps. It supports our choices. It doesn’t make them. I might have adored your scent when it was lingering on Kolsen’s lips earlier but if I didn’t truly believe that you were ours, I would have never sought you out. Camila, I am not asking you to jump into this headfirst. Fuck, maybe we should have talked first? I just knew that I needed your taste on my tongue.” He thrust his hand out in front of me. “Sasha Fox.”

The absurdity of shaking his hand again after he’s fucked me with his fingers makes me burst out laughing. “I think it’s a little late for that, Sasha. But thank you. I want to explore this but maybe not this fast all the time? It’ll get easier, right? The-”

“Horniness?” Sasha asks. “That want and desire to be with each other will always be there but it won’t be as heavy. Goddess, I can’t tell you how embarrassing it was when we first met. So. Much. Goddamn. Slick.” As out of pocket as Sasha’s words are, they’re helping me not worry about how fast this night morphed into a haze of sexual need.

Kolsen presses a kiss to my temple, tightening his hold on me. “We’ll start slow, love. As slow as you need to.”

In his arms, I can almost hide. It feels like he can protect me from the world in this space and keep me safe from my father’s ridicule or the sermon I’ll catch when I return home tonight. Kolsen’s offer is a perfect one, though. I want to start this. Just… not tonight. “At the café for breakfast? Is that-”

“It’s perfect,” Kolsen purrs, the sound rumbling through his chest. “We’ll be there. Now, let’s get you home before your father believes you’ve been kidnapped. I assume he gave you a curfew?”

My nose scrunches up at the suggestion. “I told him that I was grown and didn’t need one.”

They all start laughing, Sasha telling everyone that he knew I wasn’t as innocent as I looked.

Chapter twelve

CAMILA

I pat my flushed cheeks several times, hoping that they aren’t as noticeable as they feel when I peel out of the Uber that Kolsen ordered. He’s so gentle with me in a way that I didn’t expect and his lopsided smile as that pale blue eye stares at me makes me feel seen. Important. Wanted. If this is just a night with them, I can’t imagine a forever. A tendril of excitement runs through me at the coffee date I set up for tomorrow morning before work and I have to swallow a squeal as I thank the driver.

He nods and speeds off as I hop up the steps, hoping and praying that my father will have gone to bed already. It’s just past 10:30 which means he’ll probably be up and waiting at the table to ridicule me about any number of things, more than likely for my attitude before I left. I might be a grown woman but I’m unmated and have no current prospects that he’ll approve of.

Just do it, Camila.

The light clicks on like a horror movie when I step inside, my father leaning against the entrance to the foyer. He leans forward and sniffs the air, a frown spreading across his face as his brows deepen. “Were you drinking?”

“I’m not in high school. I can have a few drinks.”

“At the club? You know, I got a call from Teo who mentioned-”

I hold up my hand, not wanting to deal with this bullshit again as I shuck off my flats. “I know that you think Teo is a respectable Alpha, that he’s the perfect gentleman looking for the right pack but that’s far from the truth. You would know that if you had been paying attention when he broke my heart. Or when I tried to tell you that he only wanted me to be his pack Beta. Or when I tried to tell you earlier that he assaulted me. I don’t care what you think about him. I know that I cannot live with a man who will manhandle me for his own desire. He stumbled into a back hallway and cornered me, pleading for us to get back together and once again, didn’t take my no.”

“So you punched him? An Alpha?”

My eyes narrow at my father. “Yes and the fact that you have a problem with me punching an Alpha but not the fact that an Alpha tried to assault your daughter tells me where your priorities are. Mom would be ashamed of you and I know why Ethan refuses to talk to you.” Too far? Maybe. But he needs to hear it. I can’t even blame the alcohol. My father has lost sight of whatever truth he’s been preaching for years. I tune out his Sunday messages because they don’t mean anything to me—not with the way he treats me at home.

“You’re acting out. Why? What’s going on? Camila, explain to me why you can’t just obey the simple rules I’ve given you?”

I should march up to my room and call it a night. I should leave this conversation until tomorrow morning when we are both levelheaded and not amped up on the evening’s events. I have no idea what version of events my father was told but they can’t be good if I’m the one in trouble. “Why do you think that I am the problem? You always told me to keep my head down. To obey. To be good for the Alpha that chooses me. What kind of existence is that? I already know that you would be proud if I was someone’s pack Beta but fuck, that is no life to live. Not for me.”

My father growls at me, his arm swinging high over his head and I brace myself for impact. It doesn’t come though. I peek and my father is standing there, his arms hanging at his sides as if he hadn’t been about to hit me. “You have become so unruly without your mother here. I have done everything required of me as your father to make sure that you ended up with a mate.”

Tears gather in my eyes as I wrap my arms tightly around my chest, my purse gripped tightly in my hands. “Required of you? I wanted your love. Your time. Your attention. All you could ever give me was rules and when I didn’t follow them, you gave me discipline or ridicule. I am your disappointment because you let me be but I have done nothing wrong. Nothing.”

My father steps closer, glaring down at me, reminding me that not all Alphas are as caring as Amiri and Kolsen. “Nothing? Then what are all those scents you’re drenched in? You go to a club, reject the one Alpha who gave you the time of day, and come back smelling like an entire pack. Is this what you call doing nothing wrong?” He laughs, shaking his head. “I won’t have that in my house, Camila. Tomorrow, things will change.”

Which means more rules and restrictions.

“No.”

“No?” One of his brows raises, challenging my statement.

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